Mycotoxin, which is formed by fungi, is known to have serious effects on the health of humans and animals as follows: developing symptoms of poisoning such as diarrhea or nausea, causing cancer, and having the possibility to trigger premature births or abortion. Therefore, it has been a long-standing task to find how to inhibit mycotoxin production in fungi which infect food crops. Particularly, a problem has arisen recently in that infection of food crops with fungi during their growth cycle causes exposure of the harvested crops to mycotoxin, with the result that the harvested crops can not be provided as food.
In order to prevent the aforementioned problem, some measures have been taken: improving growth conditions of plants, avoiding crop rotation, improving strain, and transforming plants so as to provide resistance to mycotoxin (see, for example patent documents 1 and 2). In addition, various types of fungicide are applied to food crops to prevent them from becoming infected with fungi.
[Patent Document 1] Domestic re-publication of PCT international publication for patent application No. 2002-540787.
[Patent Document 2] Domestic re-publication of PCT international publication for patent application No. 2002-533057.